


Did You Think This Was Just Plain Old Love?

by FrazzledSquidz



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Canadian Thanksgiving, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Patrick Brewer is a Button, Teasing, david rose is a wreck, love and acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 17:51:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20855825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrazzledSquidz/pseuds/FrazzledSquidz
Summary: It had been a bad month for Rose Apothecary, but Patrick wasn’t worried. In a few days it would be October and people would start to become excited about Thanksgiving and the succeeding holidays. They would rediscover favorite autumn outfits, a love for the dry crunch of colorful leaves, and that brisk smell in the air.No, Patrick wasn’t worried. But David sure was.





	Did You Think This Was Just Plain Old Love?

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I found myself in a hideous anxiety spiral about an upcoming exam and I calmed myself down by chugging some chamomile tea and writing this. 
> 
> **Spoilers for the end of season five.** 
> 
> (Obligatory PSA that everyone deals with their anxiety differently.)

It had been a bad fiscal month. 

September was always a fussy time of year, when the cold started to creep in and people found themselves reluctant to go outside and face the reality that summer had deserted them. Folks tended to want to curl up under blankets and drink hot beverages and reacquaint themselves with the interior of their homes. 

So it had been a bad month for Rose Apothecary, but Patrick wasn’t worried. In a few days it would be October and people would start to become excited about Thanksgiving and the succeeding holidays. They would rediscover favorite autumn outfits, a love for the dry crunch of colorful leaves, and that brisk smell in the air. 

No, Patrick wasn’t worried. But David sure was. 

“You’re making us a moat?” Patrick asked dryly, watching David pace in front of the counter. “I mean I trust your artistic insight; I just think our customer service might go down.”

“_What_ customer service, Patrick?” David retorted. It wasn’t biting but the hitch of anxiety in his voice made the question snappy. “To whom could we be providing this service?” He spread his arms mockingly around their store. Their empty, quiet store. 

Patrick was a pretty straight-forward guy, he thought. When he saw problems, he liked to come up with rational solutions and to soothe himself with the clarity of logic. However, he knew from experience that if he tried to reason with David right now he would just come up with increasingly bleak scenarios. Where Patrick’s brain was his friend, David’s was his enemy. 

Patrick hated to see him spiral, but the only reliable way he knew to break it was to make David’s anxiety spin so tight it wound itself into amusing knots. Until the dismal scenarios were simply beyond comprehension. 

“What if you paced us a moat in front of the store instead? That would really keep the crowds away.” 

David shot him a look, his arms back to being crossed tightly over his chest. He was wearing that grey sweatshirt that fell in layers around his torso. Patrick noticed that he tended to wear it when he was feeling anxious. Well, more anxious than usual. “Again, Patrick, which crowds are we talking about? Are you privy to a secret hoard of customers that magically appear while I’m in the back?”

“Yes, actually. They wait until you leave and then come swarming in,” Patrick replied with a straight face. “As you know, I’m the real draw of this store.”

David, bless his heart, couldn’t stop the brief roll of his eyes at that. “Ah yes. You with your minimist rotating wardrobe and tendency to proudly display items that should instead be tastefully tucked away in the back of the store.”

Good; he was teasing Patrick. Maybe this would be an easy fix. “What can I say? Schitt’s Creek goes crazy over a sensible button-down and a well-placed toilet plunger.”

“Oh God maybe that’s why the store is failing.”

Then again, maybe not. 

David uncrossed his arms (good) but started twisting the gold around his fingers (bad) and resumed his pacing (very bad, since he was now more occupied with the images in his head than Patrick and the store). “I know there’s a dearth of sensible, modern taste in this town but I really thought I had found a middle ground!” His voice was pitching higher, shoulders so tight Patrick found himself wincing in sympathy. “I source things that the neighbors make and keep the prices down but everyone is always _questioning_ the product so maybe that’s why this place is going under? I’m too focused on the _aesthetics_ and _quality_ of it when I should be thinking about the practical. Okay!” David spun around, clapping his hands in decision. “We’ll completely remodel the store! Make it less what I- what I _want_ it to be and more what people _need_ it to be.”

Patrick bit back his initial response (_With what money?_) and tried to make the conversation lighter again. “Okay but… How will the moat help?”

David blinked, snapping back to reality. He glanced down at the floor, like he was actually briefly worried he was making a hole in it. “Okay,” he repeated, dropping his hands and forcing himself to take a deep breath. Patrick couldn’t help but notice how his shoulders stayed tight, though, and how most of the air stayed in his lungs while he spoke. “What if we placed all the _very practical_ and everyday items at the front of the store while keeping the more.... Well I would still argue that they’re everyday items but we could put like the moisturizer and plants and incense and bath bombs in the _back_?” His hands were flailing and gesturing wildly as he mentally relocated their entire stock and flipped the whole design of Rose Apothecary around. 

“So… You want to make the store ugly?”

“Okay!” His hands flapped even more urgently. “Not _ugly_ but just like more _accessible_ and- and-” David’s hands clapped to his face (briefly; grease). “Oh my god no. Never mind! I can’t take it! That defeats the _whole point_!”

Patrick came around the counter, slowly approaching his fiance. “Right? If you made this place accessible and ugly it would be just like the old General Store. And we all know what happened to that place.” 

“Shut down in disgrace,” David whispered to himself, lips drawing down and out as he dropped his hands. He automatically reached for Patrick’s shoulders as he got closer (which was _very_ good). “So we’ll close down but at least we’ll go out with style? Like the _Titanic_?”

“You’d make a gorgeous Kate Winslet.” Patrick mentally high-fived himself for that one as he smoothed his hands up David’s back, which was slowly unclenching. 

“You do have Leo’s dazzling baby blues,” David murmured, one side of his mouth twisting up reluctantly. 

Patrick traced the shape of his hips, ribs, and shoulders, petting David soothingly over the comfort of his baggy sweatshirt. “Do you remember last year, around this time? We started selling apple cider and those tiny pumpkins you like and scented candles and people went crazy for that stuff.” 

His dark eyes lit up. “We had Patricia’s homemade woven baskets with miniature gourds in them! We did have to tell people they were ornamental and not for eating _but_ overall I thought it worked!”

Patrick grinned up at him. “It definitely worked, David. People are already excited to see what this place- what _you_\- are gonna come up with for holidays.”

David briefly bit his lip. “I _was_ thinking about hosting a workshop around tasteful Thanksgiving decorating.”

“Just try not to insult anyone,” Patrick teased, leaning up for a kiss. David met him halfway, smiling against his lips. 

“Okay,” he said for a final time, patting Patrick’s shoulders decisively. “Let me call Patricia and Kate and, oh, probably Derrick, too! Maybe he’ll have more of those wreaths that people loved last year.” David walked away still chattering, most likely to find his journal and start writing down ideas and reminders. 

Patrick couldn’t help but beam at his retreating form, his heart swelling inside his chest. He turned and looked around at the empty store, already trying to imagine the magic that David would create for it.

**Author's Note:**

> (Update: I killed my exam.)


End file.
